Step by Step
by SassySunshine
Summary: Just a random Simonor one-shot. When Jeanette and Theodore ditch them, Simon and Eleanor do their weather project together and gradually get closer. Cartoon universe! R&R!


**Boredom-inspired writing off the top of my head. Originally intended as A/B, now an S/E one-shot.  
**

* * *

**~Step by Step~  
~by ChipetteGirl10~**

"Just go and talk to him!"

"It's not that easy."

"Then how come I'm able to do it and Jeanette's able to, too?"

"Don't remind me about Jeanette."

"Why – oh."

"Yeah. This is my way of getting back at her."

"So they fell in love. Get over it and move on, don't try and get revenge."

"Like you tried to do with Charlene?"

"I told you never to speak of that again."

"When she took Alvin from you, you went into an all-out rage. It has, like, one billion views by now on YouTube."

"I told you never to speak of that again!"

"Humph, well then!"

"Just go over and talk to him. It's not that big a deal."

"But I can't."

"He is a nerd with no life. Just keep talking and if he talks about science or something stupid, wean him off of the topic until you find something flirtatious to say."

"But what if I can't?"

"Then I have a list of boys you could ask out that Jeanette happens to have small crushes on."

"You read her diary, didn't you?"

"…No…I happen to have read her mind."

"How many pages long was the entry?"

"Five pages on each boy. Fifteen for Simon."

"She is obsessed."

"Yeah."

"It makes me wonder how she ended up with Theodore of all people."

"I wonder why Theodore even accepted."

"Yeah, me too."

"…Alright, get a move on before I drag you over myself."

"Gosh, I'm going, I'm going!"

"Good."

The blonde chipette got up from the park bench where she was previously sitting with her redheaded sister and made her way over to one of her friends, a blue-clad, bespectacled chipmunk. He was conversing with his red-clad older brother, her redheaded sister's boyfriend.

"Hi Simon."

"Oh, good afternoon Eleanor, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm, um…I'm doing good."

"Oh. I see you're taking the new couple well."

A reference to Jeanette and Theodore.

"You're not? I thought you would be over it by now, seeing as you were encouraging Theodore."

"I thought he was referencing you, not Jeanette."

"Oh."

An awkward silence.

"So…"

"How is Jeanette doing with Theodore?"

"Oh, she's good, good…she's really, really happy from what I can tell."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

More silence.

"You two are so boring!"

That was Alvin.

The chipmunk rolled his eyes with a huff.

"I'm going to go talk to Brittany, you two make conversation amongst yourselves. And get over Theodore and Jeanette, I mean honestly!"

The rant continued as he walked away.

"Alvin can be really irritating."

"Try living with him."

Eleanor cracked a smile.

"You must really hate it having to share a room with him."

"I do. A home, fine. But a room, I don't think so. He destroys my stuff, destroys Theodore's stuff, and locks us out on a regular basis."

"Harsh. It's like Brittany with the bathroom."

"Oh really?"

"We missed the bus one day and had to walk to school because her curling iron broke and she had a fit."

"I heard that!"

Eleanor glared in Brittany's direction.

"Hush up, Brittany!"

Simon gave a half-hearted laugh.

Then he noticed the time on his watch.

"Oh, goodness, I need to get going. I'm heading on over to the library so I can do my project."

"Who are you doing it with?"

"I _was_ going to do it with Jeanette…and then Theodore came along and they became partners."

"Shoot!"

"I suppose Theodore was your partner and didn't tell you?"

"You know it."

"Well, Eleanor, would you consider partnering up with me? If you don't w-want to it's okay—"

"Sure, I'd be happy to. I'll go with you to the library."

"Oh, well, thank you, but you don't have to."

"We're partners, I'm not letting you do all of the hard work on this."

Simon absently nodded and the pair walked over to their siblings.

"Brittany?" Eleanor interrupted.

"Oh, yeah?" Brittany muttered in reply, glaring as she was about to begin kissing Alvin.

"Simon and I are headed to the library to start that project."

"Go on ahead, I don't care. Be home by five," Alvin responded with a shrug.

Brittany nodded in agreement.

"Alright then," Eleanor said.

She and Simon walked away.

"You do realize that Jeanette and Theodore may end up coming to their senses and this will be a giant mess, right?"

"Don't worry, Alvie. If that happens, I know a great hiding place so we don't get caught in the middle."

"Good to know."

"Yup."

"Hmm…"

"What?"

"Britt, where were we?"

"About to kiss."

"Right, right."

And Alvin pulled her into a kiss.

Meanwhile, at the library, Eleanor stood on a stool and reached for a book on weather.

"Be careful, Eleanor. That book is kind of high up. Would you like me to get it for you?"

"No, no, that's fine, I've got it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Simon…"

"Are you absolutely positive?"

"Simon, for the last time, I'm fine."

And with that, she gave the book a yank.

"I've got it! W-Whoa!"

Simon caught the blonde before she could fall from the stool.

_Just like I used to do with Jeanette._

"Oh, uh, um…thank you Simon."

Eleanor's cheeks burned crimson and she glanced down at her feet awkwardly.

"I guess we should fine a few more books and head back to one of our houses," she mumbled.

"Uh, yeah. My place would be fine; Dave won't mind."

"Are you sure?" Eleanor asked him.

He nodded.

"Okay."

The next fifteen minutes were spent searching the shelves for books on all kinds of weather; tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, fronts, you name it.

The two chipmunks checked the books out and began to walk back to the Seville residence.

"What should we do for the video now?"

"Well, Jeanette and I were having…a, um, rather heated debate, I could put it like that, on whether we should do her idea, a blizzard, or my idea, on a heat wave."

"You know, I was also considering a heat wave, but Theodore insisted on making it a hurricane."

"Well then, a heat wave it is," Simon agreed.

"Now, we need to decide who's in the newsroom and who's on the scene," Eleanor said thoughtfully.

"W-Well, we have a pool, and since it's a heat wave, we could use the pool. However, I'm not good in water, especially on camera," Simon replied.

"Well I could do the on the scene then. Besides, you're much smarter than I am and would do far better than me in the newsroom," Eleanor agreed with him.

"You're pretty smart yourself, Eleanor, don't bring yourself down like that."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Simon, but everyone knows you're smarter than everyone."

"Thank you, Eleanor."

"No problem, Simon."

One week later Eleanor was over at the Seville residence. Alvin was out at the mall with Brittany, much to his chagrin, and Theodore was upstairs in his room, most likely talking to Jeanette on the phone.

The green-clad chipette was wearing white boyshorts and a lime green tankini top with straps that tied around her neck. White stripes ran horizontally across it. A lime green oversized off-the-shoulder top with a white E on it was thrown over her tankini. She wore green-and-white striped flip-flops and her hair was in her normal pigtails.

The bespectacled chipmunk she was working with was wearing a blue short-sleeved button-down shirt, a black tie, black pants, and blue sneakers. His hair was as normal.

"So who are we shooting first?" Simon asked nervously, adjusting his tie in front of the mirror.

"I was thinking we could do you first, if you'd like," Eleanor said with a smile, pulling her black camera and tripod out of a bag she brought with her.

She set it up in front of the dining room table, where a green screen was set up against the wall.

"I had no idea you were good with tech stuff," Simon said, looking around.

"Oh, it's nothing big. I went to a camp over the summer about photography and video-editing. It was really fun so I began to learn more about it," Eleanor replied with a grin, setting up her camera.

She turned it on.

"Do you have the script—err, weather report—ready to go?"

Simon held up a stack of papers.

"Great! Okay, I'm going to count down from five. Instead of saying one, I'll point to you and simultaneously turn the camera on, signaling you to go," Eleanor informed Simon.

The blue-clad chipmunk nodded.

"Five…"

Simon stared nervously at the camera.

"Four…"

A hurried adjusting of his tie.

"Three…"

Drumming his fingers rapidly.

"Two…"

A cough.

And Eleanor's finger pointed to him as the red LED light on the camera turned on, signaling they were filming.

"Good afternoon folks, I am weatherman Simon Seville here for Southern California Teen News. Today, and all throughout the next week, we will be having a massive heat wave as a high pressure system stalls over us with a warm front added to it. Humidity will be high and the dew point is sixty-four degrees. Today's temperatures will be around ninety-three degrees, and with that high humidity and calm winds, it will feel more like ninety-seven. Take it easy today. Now, let's head to weatherwoman Eleanor, outside in the sweltering heat."

Eleanor stopped filming there.

"Great job Simon," she congratulated.

"Now what?" Simon asked.

"We have two options at this point. We can film me in the pool, or film your parts next."

"Let's go with mine, if that's okay."

And they continued.

Two weeks later, it was time to present the reports.

"Who would like to go first?" their teacher asked, sitting down in his seat. Instantaneously, a little over half of the class' hands went up.

"Simon Seville and your partner," the teacher called. Simon and Eleanor walked up to the front of the room. Eleanor put her CD in the disk drive and opened the folder on the computer. The SMARTBoard was turned on, allowing the class to view the other files on the disk.

"Stop reading my file names," Alvin read aloud on one of them.

"Purple dragons threw Brittany into a volcano," Brittany's friend Nicki read on another.

"WHAT?" Brittany yelped.

Eleanor giggled.

"Those are all fake files," she said, clicking on the weather video.

The video began to play.

"Good afternoon folks, I am weatherman Simon Seville here for Southern California Teen News. Today, and all throughout the next week, we will be having a massive heat wave as a high pressure system stalls over us with a warm front added to it. Humidity will be high and the dew point is sixty-four degrees. Today's temperatures will be around ninety-three degrees, and with that high humidity and calm winds, it will feel more like ninety-seven. Take it easy today. Now, let's head to weatherwoman Eleanor, outside in the sweltering heat."

The screen was divided into two parts, showing Eleanor in the pool on the right and Simon sitting at the news desk on the left. The camera panned to Eleanor's giving her a full screen like Simon previously.

"I love swimming, I love swimming! OH MY GOSH THERE'S A SHARK!"

A toy shark came popping up in the water. Eleanor screamed and thrashed about.

"We're on air," Dave's voice said quietly from off-screen.

"Oh," was Eleanor's response. She grinned sheepishly at the camera.

"Well, like Simon said earlier, this heat is just awful. If you have a pool, go in it. Otherwise, stay inside. It's too hot for a beach day, so unless you want to burn your feet on that sand, don't go to the beach!"

The screen panned into two parts, revealing Simon in the newsroom once more.

"Just how hot is it down there, Eleanor?" he asked. Eleanor looked at a thermometer on the deck connected to the pool.

"Yikes, it says ninety-eight."

"And yet you're tiring yourself out swimming?"

"Oh…SHUSH UP."

"Okay, Eleanor, what else is it like there? All of our viewers need to know."

"It's really humid out so it's just really, really stuffy. Pollen here is high, so if you have allergies, I recommend you stay indoors. Back to you Simon. La, la, la! I love to swim! Wheeeee!"

"We're not off the air yet," Dave called quietly. Eleanor looked at the camera sheepishly, waved, and then dove under the water. The camera panned back into the divide, and finally back to Simon.

"Well, that was, uh, quite a weather report there, Eleanor. And that's it for your weather report. We'll check back at the top of the hour. Now to our sports segment, after the break."

Newsroom music played them out to a commercial.

Eleanor stood on screen in a brown wig. The brown hair was tied into a low ponytail on her right side with a yellow ribbon. She wore a white tank top and dark blue jean shorts. She wore a yellow shrug over the tank top and yellow flip-flops.

"Hey you!" Simon called from off-screen.

"Who are you?" Eleanor-in-disguise snapped.

"Have you ever wanted to stay cool during summer and look stylish?"

"No. You're thinking of my cousin."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure…"

"Well then I have just the solution for you!"

"But you're thinking of my cousin!"

"Try ice dress, the newest, coolest dress to wear during those hot summer months. You put on a bathing suit underneath and slip on ice dress, and you'll be the hottest new topic ever!"

"But I don't want to! GO TALK TO MY COUSIN!" Eleanor's character protested.

And then she was whisked away to a red carpet premier in a yellow one-piece bathing suit and yellow heels.

"I'm on the red carpet in my bathing suit!"

"Not for long!" Simon's voice interrupted.

An ice dress appeared on her.

Eleanor's character looked down.

"I can see a demented version of my bathing suit th-th-th-through th-th-this!"

"See? Now you're stylish and cool!"

"You l-l-literally m-m-meant c-c-c-c-cool! I'm gonna g-g-g-get h-hypoth-thermia…"

"With ice dress, you'll show up all the celebrities at the red carpet and make all of your friends jealous!"

"B-B-But I d-d-d-don't c-care! G-G-Go talk t-t-to m-my c-cousin!"

"And ice dress takes itself off!"

Standing in direct sunlight at the park now, the ice dress was quickly melting off of Eleanor.

"People c-can s-see my b-b-bathing s-suit n-now!"

"And to make a new ice dress, all you do is pour water in this mold. Buy ice dress today!"

The screen faded to black.

The class was about to clap when flashes of colors appeared with the word BLOOPERS in big, black, bold lettering.

"You better not break that camera," Eleanor said off-screen as the camera wobbled.

"And if I do?" Simon's voice came.

"Then you buy me a new one."

"I don't wanna know how much this is, so I'm gonna go easy."

"Simon, are we almost ready to record?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Si…"

"Yes…?"

"The red light is on."

"Oh…we're recording now, aren't we?"

"Yeah."

Silence…

"Turn off the camera!"

The screen gave the video a white frame and the picture dropped as another one fell into place. The white frame left as the camera zoomed in and the video of the second blooper began to play.

"Simon!"

"What?"

"SIMON!"

"What?"

"SIMON!"

"Eleanor if you scream my name one more time—"

"There's a shark in the pool!"

"It's a toy."

"No, a real one. It's actually swimming."

"How is that possible? A baby shark would probably be able to fit but how would it have gotten in?"

"I don't know, but there's a shark!"

"Let me see!"

Simon peered into the cerulean water.

"That's no shark."

Alvin popped up covered in gray paint, feet tied together, and fake fins attached to him.

"You're such a wimp, El."

"I thought you were at the mall with Brittany!"

"We lied!" Brittany called to her little sister, dumping a bucket of water on her.

Simon and Eleanor looked to each other and nodded.

They both grabbed pool noodles and began to swing at their siblings.

The screen faded to white and the next blooper faded in from black.

"That was an interesting report Eleanor, care to do it again?"

"Simon," Eleanor hissed off-screen.

"It was funny watching you thrash about."

"You're as bad as your brother."

"I take offence to that," Simon gasped in fake hurt.

Eleanor scoffed.

"Whatever!"

The video ended with a picture of Simon and Eleanor chasing Alvin and Brittany with pool noodles in their hands.

"Simon Seville, I have never seen you so loud and spontaneous like that. Great job to the both of you, that earns you an A+!" the teacher told the both of them.

They nodded gratefully and high-fived, and then returned to their seats.

"I had fun working with you," Eleanor announced to Simon later at lunch.

"Me too. That was a great video and your editing was amazing," Simon agreed.

"I was wondering if you'd like to hang out some time?" Eleanor asked him shyly.

Simon swallowed the bite of his sandwich he had been chewing on and looked at Eleanor.

"M-Me? H-Hang out w-w-with you?"

"Yeah…"

"I'd like that Eleanor."

Over the course of the next few months, Simon and Eleanor's relationship grew, yet they were still not a couple.

But that was fine with them.

They would take it step by step.

* * *

**Wow. I actually intended for this to be another Alvin/Brittany one-shot. But I guess that's what happens when you write late at night off the top of your head. Well, if you enjoyed, drop a review. If not…drop a review anyway. On the Line is going on a brief hiatus while I gather some more inspiration. I've rewritten the beginning paragraph three or four times now and writer's block is not helping. On the bright side, school lets out next Tuesday, the 19****th****! See you in whatever my next update is!**


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